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Updated: May 27, 2025
Passengers were crowding the steps behind him. Someone shouted suddenly, "Look at that!" and someone else yelled, "Is that guy crazy?" Bart looked up. A robotcab was swooping over the spaceport in wild, crazy circles, dipping down, suddenly making a dart like an enraged wasp at a little nest of Lhari. They ducked and scattered; the robotcab swerved away, hovered, swooped back.
The robotcab glowed briefly red, then seemed to sag, sink together; then puddled, a slag heap of molten metal, on the glassy floor of the port. A little moan of horror came from the crowd, and Bart felt a sudden, wrenching sickness. It had been like a game, a silly game of cops and robbers, and suddenly it was as serious as melted death lying there on the spaceport. Briscoe!
He could understand that they had shot down the robotcab with Edmund Briscoe in it, in pure self-defense; and that knowledge had taken off the edge of the horror. But the death of young Briscoe and everyone he had talked to could not be explained away. "You seem very sure they wouldn't have killed me, Meta," he said, carefully clasping his hand around hers. "They wouldn't," she affirmed.
But he saw only one disembarking passenger who had not yet been surrounded by a group of welcoming relatives, or summoned a robotcab and gone. The man was wearing Vegan clothes, but he wasn't Bart's father. He was a fat little man, with ruddy cheeks and a fringe of curling gray hair all around his bald dome. Maybe he'd know if there was another Vegan on the ship.
I'll get off at Procyon with you." It was a temptation to have a friend at his back. He put his hand on Tommy's shoulder, grateful beyond words. But fresh horror seized him as he remembered the horrible puddle of melted robotcab with Briscoe somewhere in the residue. Protoplasm residue enough for two bodies. He couldn't let Tommy face that. "Tommy, I appreciate that, believe me.
Bart felt resentful; just because Mentorians could work on Lhari ships, did they have to act as if they owned everybody? When the man had gone, Bart drew a deep breath. Was he really doing the right thing? If he'd refused to get out of the robotcab If he'd driven Briscoe straight to the police Then maybe Briscoe would still be alive. And now it was too late.
"But what then? Is Dad there? Will I know " "I don't know any more than I've told you," Briscoe said. Abruptly the robotcab came to a halt, swaying a little. Briscoe jerked the door open, gave Bart a push, and Bart found himself stumbling out on the ramp beside the spaceport building. He caught his balance, looked around, and realized that the robotcab was already climbing the sky again.
This time it struck one of the Lhari grazingly with landing gear and knocked him sprawling. Bart stood with his mouth open, as if paralyzed. Briscoe! What was he doing? The fallen Lhari lay without moving. The robotcab moved in again, as if for the kill, buzzing viciously overhead. Then a beam of light arced from one of the drawn energon-ray tubes.
"It all sounds phony as can be. How do I know whether to believe you or not?" His hand hovered over the robotcab controls. "We're going straight to the police. If you're okay, they won't turn you over to the Lhari. If you're not " "You young fool," said the fat man, with feeble violence, "there's no time for all that! Ask me questions I can prove I know your father!" "What was my mother's name?"
Was his father hiding inside the Lhari ship? He wanted to run, to burst away from the imposter, but the guy was shaking so hard Bart couldn't just leave him standing there. If the Lhari got him, he was a dead duck. A copter swooped down, the pilot signaling. The little man said hoarsely, "No. Robotcab."
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